Many of today's electronic devices, and in particular portable electronic devices, have multiple functionalities. For example, current cellular telephones may provide a web browser for surfing the Internet and checking e-mail, a music player for playing MP3 files stored on the device, a camera for capturing pictures and videos, and a radio receiver for tuning to various radio stations in the geographic area. This way, consumers can use a single device for business and/or entertainment purposes and do not need to carry around multiple portable devices.
An engineer may encounter many obstacles when designing a multi-functional device. In particular, because the space on a portable device is limited, one concern when designing, manufacturing, or preparing a device for shipment is that the various components of the device will interfere with one another and lower the overall quality of performance. For example, the audio quality or tuning ability of the radio receiver implemented on a device may be affected by whether the camera is in use.
Accordingly, thorough tests of the electronic device may be run to ensure that the device is capable of sufficiently high performance in various operating scenarios and under various operating conditions. The test equipment used in running the tests, however, may interfere with how the device would perform outside of the testing environment (e.g., when operated by a consumer).